Sun makes Java core opensource

Sun today announced an unexpected move, they have made their Java platform available for free under the opensource GNU general public license version 2.

What Sun is due to announce Monday is the open-sourcing of both its Java Platform Standard Edition (Java SE) and its Java Platform Micro Edition (Java ME) under the GNU general public license version 2 (GPLv2).

Popular in the free and open-source software (FOSS) community, the GPL which was created in 1989, then revised as GPLv2 in 1991, is used by the Linux operating system, MySQL AB’s database and the Samba file-and-print server project.

Sun first committed back in May to make Java freely available and since that time company executives have been consulting with Sun partners and developers to determine which license would best meet their needs.

"GPL is the right choice," said Laurie Tolson, Sun’s vice president of Java developer products and programs. The move shouldn’t be read as an admission that CDDL has failed, she added, although convincing developers to adopt a newer open-source license has taken more time than Sun might have hoped.